It's been a while since I used realtek drivers so I don't quite recall. Go through every option available and look for words "full range." It's possible the option is unavailable or grayed out if you're using stereo connection (since full range speakers are implied at that point). Uninstalling realtek drivers completely and using Windows drivers may work too.

padlock wrote on Sep 30, 2011, 23:09:Maybe I'm missing something here, but if using a digital connection(HDMI/Optical/Coax) why would a discrete soundcard be any better then on board? Either way, you're simply spitting out a bitstream.

I can understand why analog out might be better with a discrete soundcard, but aren't most people using digital connections now?

I don't know the whole history, but I think when they created the specs for optical/coax, 5.1 home theatre setups were rare, so these connections are only capable of stereo PCM bitstream. they can't carry too much data, so surround audio must be compressed using ac3 or dts to fit. If you have stereo setup, then great! It wouldn't matter. However, if you have surround setup, then the audio must be compressed in real-time. Most dedicated cards can do it, but most onboard can't. (if you play games that have surround audio that is - dvds already have compressed stream in form of dolby digital, dts or whatever)

edit: apparently HDMI can do surround in PCM, so that's good. Although it's still up to the drivers to decide what data gets put into which stream. If you have crappy drivers quality would suffer because the data is wrong, regardless of whether it's digital or analog.

Ant wrote on Sep 30, 2011, 22:15:Which players can do it? Does the latest Winamp, K-Lite Codec Full Pack's Media Player Classic Home Cinema (MPC-HC), etc. do? If so, then they are still weak IMO compared to my Audigy 2 ZS! And yes, I played with the driver's equalizer (EQ).

Back when I was using Realtek I used to use VLC. I can't remember for the life of me if it was a built in feature or a plugin, but there was an option to split subwoofer channel manually and specify the frequency.If you can't find such option, try enabling Dolby Surround option (in vlc) and see if it helps - if they're using recent prologic it might do the bass.

Yeah, that's a big problem with Realtek chips. They're perfectly capable of outputting bass, but apparently their programmers don't know how to do LFE crossover at the driver level. If you use a media player or play games using an audio API that does it manually (Dirt2 does, I think), you'll hear perfect bass again. Of course, most games don't, because it's the kind of thing that soundcard is responsible for doing.

Funny thing is I used to think that discrete was on its way out about 5 years ago.

But suddenly Vista came out and the audio was no longer hardware accelerated. Which meant that the driver software actually mattered a lot more. Companies like Realtek made shit software and couldn't keep up. I had 3 boards with Realtek chips in them, and as of the beginning of 2010, none of them had proper driver support for Vista and 7. Channels were frequently missing, wrong frequency range was sent to speakers, none of the dsp worked as they should... The difference was very clearly audible when you switch to XP.So yeah, unless you invest in more expensive motherboards with proper onboard audio with good driver support, you'll want dedicated.

Whether it can reach wider audience or not is beside the point - of course we expected there to be some sort of appstore-like storefront for windows 8 that's highly regulated by microsoft (a replacement for gfw.com that does apps as well as games, if you will). Even revenue cut was expected if you want to buy apps straight from microsoft. Nobody expected that you can't make a metro app that you can't distribute youself. Why is it a disincentive? Because Metro interface is microsoft's long-term strategy of what the PC platform represents in the future. It's clear at this point that they want to turn it into a closed platform like iOS or xbox. For now they're going to allow open software and appstore software to co-exist (through windows 7 interface), but this sets a very dangerous precedent for developers and publishers everywhere.

Imagine metro were a success and Windows 9 only came with metro interface. What then? Will MS allow firefox to run on metro? Will VLC? will Steam? They now have to ask for Microsoft for permission to exist on their closed platform. And do you know how cumbersome and painstaking it is for self funded indie developers to get certification for their platforms? Whats the future of PC gaming then? Metro's success is the LAST thing we want.

/developer rant over

edit: oh - I think misread the article. It does say at the end that you don't have to publish metro apps through Windows 8 appstore. Nevermind

edit2: actually... the wordings in both article (the one linked and the source) are bit ambiguous to tell for sure. The source makes it seem as if apps using metro interface have no choice but to publish through windows 8 store.Whatever. The definition of "PC gamer" will change from windows gamer to linux gamer in 5~10 years time if this sticks.

i would love to go wireless, but I generally had poor experience with them. signal drops were very common with any sort of interference. bluetooth was slightly better, but it got laggier and laggier with increasing distance from the receiver (almost like gaming on onlive service).

Do they even consider the fact that most console gamers don't buy new games if they know they can't sell it off used? If it weren't for used sales, there would've been less new sales, and I suspect it would've evened out in the end.

My prediction is in line with Beamers, although I hope to hell that it doesn't happen (because I'm a PC gamer and a tinkerer). The enthusiast PC gaming market is practically built on the backs of casual PC users - high-end gpus (which is a very very tiny fraction of a chip maker's revenue) is only possible because of the manufacturing capacity enabled by low-end market. (source: i used to work for one :P)

I can now edit video, upload video, browse web, edit documents and print them on my tablet without turning on the PC once. When "post pc" devices such as ultraportables meet 99% of computing needs of a typical household, the desktop PC market will disappear, and it won't be cost-effective for companies such as gpu manufacturer to make a gaming card anymore (they'll no longer have the means to make them cheaply - it'd be like 20~30 years ago, when 3d accelerated gpus cost more than a car). The enthusiast PC gaming market will die with the PC.

edit: I should say that it's only my prediction and things may turn out very differently. I'm not an expert on market trends.

What the heck? I don't know any system builder who's under delusion that it's any sort of engineering. There never was any money in enthusiast market and all gpu arms race ever was/is for the pedegree, a bit like f1 rivalry between car manufacturers. If anything is going to bring about the end of gaming gpus, it's going to be the whole "post pc" movement, not any changing landscape on the pc gaming front.

that can't possibly an official Nintendo peripheral. Looks real ugly.Why couldn't they have put the analog nub on the right side to begin with? I mean I get that most people are right-handed and they might be holding a stylus instead, but imagine how easy it would've been for games that don't require a stylus.